AFTER suffering a broken neck and collarbone, Cushendall’s Martin Burke plans to savour today’s All-Ireland semi-final showdown with Galway champions St Thomas’s at Parnell Park.
There were various times the Ruairi Og full-back didn’t think he would play hurling again but he has battled back from both career-threatening injuries and hopes to help the north Antrim men into their second All-Ireland final in three years.
It was soon after their devastating St Patrick’s Day loss to Limerick champions Na Piarsaigh Burke wrecked his collarbone.
Recalled to Antrim duty for the remainder of the 2016 season, Burke fell heavily in the early stages of the Christy Ring final against Meath and was sidelined.
The following year a gym accident put him in a neck brace for five months.
“Last year I started with the county, we were in the gym and a bar bell came down and cracked a vertebrae in my neck,” he says.
“We were doing a squat jump and the bar came off my neck. I didn’t know I’d done damage because I went out and did the running afterwards. It got worse every day after that and I eventually went to the hospital and got it seen to.”
He added: “I got an x-ray and doctors came running in saying: ‘Don’t move, don’t move.’ I thought they meant that when they were taking the x-ray that I moved. But they really meant ‘Don’t move’ as they were afraid I could be paralysed.”
The neck injury was deemed “stable” and after five months in a neck brace and a period of intensive physio, Burke returned to action.
“Another inch and it could have been one hundred times worse. Contact sport wasn’t looking likely and I didn’t know if I would ever get back.
“Antrim put me through private specialists and they said to me it was stable enough and if I get good rehab on it I’d be alright. The big thing was getting my confidence back, especially if you’re playing full-back.”
Burke was a calming influence in the Cushendall defence as they retained the Antrim championship back in October, outclassing Loughgiel in the decider before seeing off Ballycran in Ulster.
Even though they’d lost back-to-back county finals to Loughgiel and Dunloy in 2016 and 2017, it’s been the bitter defeat to Na Piarsaigh that drives the Ruairi Ogs.
“Na Piarsiagh were like a county team. It was the best day of your life and the worst day of your life all in one,” Burke recalls.
“There was such hype around it and for the final to go so wrong, so quickly – at half-time we were 12 or 13 points down – it was really disappointing.
“That defeat gave us great appetite to get back. Once you taste that you want to get back again and you don’t know when you’ll be back, so hopefully we can put those experiences to good use against St Thomas’s.
“They have three or four from Galway you watch every summer. They are super hurlers. Any Galway team is going to be very good so we know they’re going to be a serious outfit.”
Burke, though, is hoping Cushendall’s direct style of play can unnerve the heavy favourites in Parnell Park today.
“It’s no secret what Cushendall’s style is: we’re big, we’re physical, we work hard and our forwards are big men. So we can go direct and that style suits winter hurling.”
